P10 Display Issues

Andy247

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Dec 19, 2019
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Hi Guru's,

I have just put my P10 5x6 matrix together and am testing. I am getting noise in rows 1 and 4 mainly and a little in row 3.
I have each row as an output on the octoscroller and set up same in FPP on the BBB.
If I disconnect row 1, row 4 seems to get better. I have checked all wiring for power and data cables to all the panels.
It seems like a power problem to me, but not sure. Picture below
I have tried to swap data cables and reassign the output ports from 1 to 7 in FPP and changed the cables on the octoscroller, but still same issue.
I am running 2 x 5v 350w power supplies through fuses. Negatives are connected.
 

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Derf

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Hi Andy,

Can you post a picture of the rear wiring of the panel and also your falcon pi players panel output tab so we can take a look.

Some octoscrollers have issues with port 1 on the board as well so try change that around.

Once we have a photo of your panel output we can start to piece together where it is having issues.

Also by the way you are sending that from xlights. Are you running bridge mode e1.31 or ddp?

Ta!
 

Andy247

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Dec 19, 2019
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42
Hi Andy,

Can you post a picture of the rear wiring of the panel and also your falcon pi players panel output tab so we can take a look.

Some octoscrollers have issues with port 1 on the board as well so try change that around.

Once we have a photo of your panel output we can start to piece together where it is having issues.

Also by the way you are sending that from xlights. Are you running bridge mode e1.31 or ddp?

Ta!
Hi Derf,

The problem is the same if I run direct from xLights or from my Rasperberry Pi show player. Photo of singing faces is via show player, the butterfly photo in original post is direct from xLights. Photos attached of the rear of my panels. Also have attached screen shots of my Raspberry Pi output page, running in e1.31, not DDP.

Thanks for your help.
 

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Andy247

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Hi Derf,

The problem is the same if I run direct from xLights or from my Rasperberry Pi show player. Photo of singing faces is via show player, the butterfly photo in original post is direct from xLights. Photos attached of the rear of my panels. Also have attached screen shots of my Raspberry Pi output page, running in e1.31, not DDP.

Thanks for your help.
Also attached xLights controller config and layout tab.
 

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AAH

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That looks more like a soldering or connection thing rather than a config thing to me. As you said you've tried swapping outputs I hope that removes my soldering of the octo from the equation.
What happens if you remove all the cables from the octo except for the 1 going to row 1?
Can you try swapping the cabling from rows 1 and 2 without changing the config at all.
Swap it at the octo end first, then swap it at the panel end.
If the fault stays with the row regardless then skip the 1st panel in the row and see if you get similar issues but with everything shifted a panel to the side.
Try testing with a fixed known signal so you can see where things are jumping around or duplicated. The FPP test function and testing individual channels or da_tester where you can turn on a single channel or a universe/s at a time.
The wiring for Px panels contains lots of pins that a connected directly in parallel across a number of panels and with the octo there are lots that are across all 8 outputs. If there is a problem with 1 output or 1 panel it can affect seemingly unrelated things.
 

Andy247

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That looks more like a soldering or connection thing rather than a config thing to me. As you said you've tried swapping outputs I hope that removes my soldering of the octo from the equation.
What happens if you remove all the cables from the octo except for the 1 going to row 1?
Can you try swapping the cabling from rows 1 and 2 without changing the config at all.
Swap it at the octo end first, then swap it at the panel end.
If the fault stays with the row regardless then skip the 1st panel in the row and see if you get similar issues but with everything shifted a panel to the side.
Try testing with a fixed known signal so you can see where things are jumping around or duplicated. The FPP test function and testing individual channels or da_tester where you can turn on a single channel or a universe/s at a time.
The wiring for Px panels contains lots of pins that a connected directly in parallel across a number of panels and with the octo there are lots that are across all 8 outputs. If there is a problem with 1 output or 1 panel it can affect seemingly unrelated things.
Hi Alan,
Thanks for the feedback. Here goes, I have some strange things going on.
If I put in test mode on cycle RGB (solid colours) - all panels work fine.
If I put in chase mode - have problems with rows 1 & 4 as per previous
Now if I disconnect all but 1 from the octo - top row is split in half with colours but blurring is stopped (refer photo 1). Then if I put row 1 into output 2 on octo, get similar issue with half the row a different colour (refer photo 2).
Then if I go back and connect up output 1 & 2 in octo - both rows look good (refer photo 3). If I connect in output 4, still all good (refer photo 4). Then if I introduce output 3, get issues on row 4 (refer photo 5).
Then i go back to outputs 1 & 4, both rows are good (refer photo 6).
Then I moved all across 1 panel (refer photo 7). Then when i went back to all panels to outputs, get issues (refer photo 8).
Am thinking it is something to do with the BBB or Octo, given I can get both rows 1 & 4 to work properly.
Any advice would be appreciated.
 

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Andy247

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Hi Alan,
Thanks for the feedback. Here goes, I have some strange things going on.
If I put in test mode on cycle RGB (solid colours) - all panels work fine.
If I put in chase mode - have problems with rows 1 & 4 as per previous
Now if I disconnect all but 1 from the octo - top row is split in half with colours but blurring is stopped (refer photo 1). Then if I put row 1 into output 2 on octo, get similar issue with half the row a different colour (refer photo 2).
Then if I go back and connect up output 1 & 2 in octo - both rows look good (refer photo 3). If I connect in output 4, still all good (refer photo 4). Then if I introduce output 3, get issues on row 4 (refer photo 5).
Then i go back to outputs 1 & 4, both rows are good (refer photo 6).
Then I moved all across 1 panel (refer photo 7). Then when i went back to all panels to outputs, get issues (refer photo 8).
Am thinking it is something to do with the BBB or Octo, given I can get both rows 1 & 4 to work properly.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Also to note, I am getting 5.03v at all the panel power connectors.
 

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Andy247

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Also to note, I am getting 5.03v at all the panel power connectors.
Disregard photos 7 & 8, i knocked off the power connector to the 2nd panel from right side in row 2, hence the issues. Still same problem with rows 1 & 4.
 
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AAH

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I couldn't follow exactly when the fault was occurring but the fact that R>G>B cycle works and the chase doesn't has me suspect on a possible power issue as the single colour is only ever 30% current. Can you measure the voltage at the back of the P10 (probably on panel 1) when a row is playing up. Changing from r-g-b to r-g-w may show up a voltage issue as things could get very pink if you have a lack of volts.
 

Andy247

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I couldn't follow exactly when the fault was occurring but the fact that R>G>B cycle works and the chase doesn't has me suspect on a possible power issue as the single colour is only ever 30% current. Can you measure the voltage at the back of the P10 (probably on panel 1) when a row is playing up. Changing from r-g-b to r-g-w may show up a voltage issue as things could get very pink if you have a lack of volts.
Alan, I can put whole panel white and all panels are at 4.88v and pure white. If I cycle b-g-w, there are definate pinks in rows 1 and 4, but all panels between 4.96v and 4.98v including those that are good.
 

Andy247

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Alan, I can put whole panel white and all panels are at 4.88v and pure white. If I cycle b-g-w, there are definate pinks in rows 1 and 4, but all panels between 4.96v and 4.98v including those that are good.
I swapped out the first panel from row 1 with first panel from row 2, and still same issue on row 1.
 

AAH

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I swapped out the first panel from row 1 with first panel from row 2, and still same issue on row 1.
What if you remove the cable from the 5th, 4th etc panels in turn on row 1?
All solid colours of r, g, b and w are all working?
Can you run a bars horizontally and vertically across the matrix and see if any craziness happens?
 

Andy247

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What if you remove the cable from the 5th, 4th etc panels in turn on row 1?
All solid colours of r, g, b and w are all working?
Can you run a bars horizontally and vertically across the matrix and see if any craziness happens?
Photo 11 is with rows disconnected at the panels - row 4 works fine now, but row 1 is not
Photo 12 is of row 1 connected to output 1. I can move the connected at the octo to all other outputs and get same result.
Photo 13 is of outputs 1-4 connected to the respective panels, row 1 works fine but row 4 is not. If i connected up output 5 or 6, then row 1 goes crazy.
Photo 14 is with outputs 1 & 4 connected to rows 1 & 4 at the octo - both rows work fine. As soon as I connected up another row, the issue starts.
 

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Derf

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Do you have a spare P10 Data cable to connect back to the octo.

Check the end cut of the cable as well as sometimes the small wires can be cut with a blunt pair of scissors which cause shorting.

Also try get the cable of the affected p10 data set and slowly and gently compress it in a vice. Be sure not to apply to much pressure as they can snap easily. It is possible some of the data lines are not connecting correctly.

Rare circumstances turn off the octo / bbb physically shake it and then unplug and reconnect all cables
 

AAH

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After you've tried what Derf suggested and if that doesn't fix the problem can you cut some cable ties and separate the power and data cable somewhat so that nothing is loomed together.
If neither of those things do nothing then it's possible that it's your power configuration that is causing issues. I looked at the pic of the back of your matrix to see if I could see any commonality between rows that play up and all I could really see was that there were long cables from the octo and that they were loomed up which can sometimes cause issues with data corruption. The power hopefully isn't the issue but we're running out of things to look at. Putting a link between the -ve terminals of the P10-Fuse boards could prevent the problem and using the same power supply the supply the full row rather than being split across a couple of power supplies and a couple of fuse boards.
#fairlypuzzled
 
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